So the stock market is looking slightly more favourably upon the somewhat beleaguered Wolseley now that they have finally found someone who's going to take Stock Building Supply off their hands. Or at least half of it, since 100% of the Stock shares have been transferred to a joint venture company, in which Wolseley will…

Wandering round the NMBS Exhibition the other week, I was struck by a rather curious idea. Maybe, just maybe, things aren't quite as bad as we had been thinking them.

I'm starting to wonder if there are any MPs left in the Palace of Westminster or whether Messrs Brown and Cameron are wandering around rather like people who've been invited to a party but got the address wrong.

So Ian Pearson has been promoted in the cabinet reshuffle to become economics minister to Treasury.

There's been a lot of publicity about a Financial Times poll of economists which suggests that the recession in the UK is over.

In the last recession, most of the headlines to do with housing were about people who couldn't afford to stay in their homes because the interest rates on their mortgages was taking payments far beyond their reach.

Well it was only a matter of time really. A CEO under whose tenure the share price lost 80% of its value was never going to really be around to see this thing through.

A mark of a civilised society must surely be that it houses its citizens in decent dwellings.

On holiday last week I saw something that, even now, a week later makes my blood boil to think about. A gorgeous lane in the Kent countryside, completely wrecked by the fly-tipping of an old kitchen, carcasses and units, sink, taps, plus the cardboard packaging of the new appliances. I suppose we should be grateful…

This recession sucks.